Kelly Hunter - Royals - His Hidden Secret - Revealed - A Prince and A Pregnancy / Date with a Surgeon Prince / The Secret King

‘You can watch me swoon instead,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I’ve just found the rack price for those wines.’ She looked to her brother. ‘I can’t ask Harrison to pay that price for wine.’

Harrison was Rafael and Gabrielle’s father, remembered Simone. Josien had refused him access to his children in their younger years, but Rafe had gone to him when he’d left Caverness. Harrison had welcomed him. He’d welcomed Gabrielle too, when she’d been unceremoniously bundled off to Australia. A generous man, thought Simone. And a patient one. What was it that he farmed again? Some sort of beef cattle. Lots of ups and downs in the beef-cattle market. ‘Ask Luc to pay for the wine,’ she suggested.

‘Ask me ,’ said Rafael with a lopsided smile that tugged at Simone’s heart. ‘How many times are you planning on getting married, angel?’

‘Once,’ said Gabrielle with quiet conviction.

‘Then do it right,’ he said gently. ‘Harrison will pay. Try stopping him. And so will I.’ He spared a lightning glance for Simone. ‘We don’t need Duvalier money.’

‘Isn’t pride a sin?’ murmured Simone, goaded into retaliation. ‘I thought it was.’

‘Stick around,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ll give you a taste of all seven.’

‘If you say so.’ Simone allowed herself a brief fantasy interlude. Rafael’s mouth on hers, hot and devouring. Her hands on him, desperate and racing. Desire bit deep and flared beneath her skin, overwhelming caution and reason and straining her control. How far could she stretch his seemingly iron control? ‘Can lust be next?’

‘Oh, boy,’ muttered Gabrielle. ‘Just pretend I’m not here. Come to think of it, I’ve just remembered a very important meeting I should be at.’

‘Stay,’ said Simone and Rafael in unison.

‘This was your idea, remember?’ added Simone.

‘What the hell was I thinking?’ said Gabrielle. ‘Oh, yeah. I remember now. I was trying to help the two of you arrive at some sort of truce before my wedding . Silly me.’

Simone felt a stab of contrition. It joined the lust and mingled surprisingly well. Probably the latent Catholic in her. ‘I’m sorry, dear heart. I will behave.’

Inigo reappeared, bearing champagne in an ice bucket in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other. ‘Do I hear the satisfied silence that comes of having made a swift decision?’ he asked hopefully as he set the wines on the table.

‘Not quite,’ said Gabrielle. ‘But we’ve narrowed it down to three.’

‘Which ones?’

Gabrielle told him.

Inigo beamed. Inigo preened. ‘You won’t be disappointed. Mind you, the thought of how long it’s going to take you to pick a favourite from that selection fills me with terror,’ he said, presenting the champagne to Simone for approval, and, at her nod, popping the cork and deftly filling three glasses in rapid succession.

‘Take the rest of the bottle through to the kitchen, please, Inigo,’ said Simone. ‘Tell the chef it’s his for the tasting and that we’d like his thoughts on what sort of canapés he thinks might best accompany it.’

‘Are you serious?’ Inigo glanced towards Rafael as if for confirmation. ‘Is she serious?’

Rafael nodded. ‘She likes to delegate from on high.’

‘Well, that’s one interpretation,’ said Simone sweetly. How could she be expected to behave in the face of Rafael’s constant baiting? ‘I like to think of it as letting the experts do their job.’ She picked up the ice bucket and handed it to Inigo. ‘Kitchen,’ she said.

‘Kitchen,’ murmured Inigo. ‘I’m on my way. I’m seeing the princess’s master plan unfold and I’m loving it. I’ll just pour a glass for myself as well as one for the chef and wax lyrical over the bouquet for a moment or two before suggesting that we call his apprentice and my offsider in to work tonight so that we can concentrate more fully on the weighty issue of planning a menu around such wines. Then I’ll go and get the whites you requested. Right after I uncork the red for you.’ Which he did. ‘There we go. Breathe, little cry baby, breathe. I have a hunch I’ll be seeing you later.’ Humming cheerfully, Inigo made his exit.

‘Congratulations,’ murmured Rafael. ‘You’ve made a conquest.’

‘Haven’t we all,’ countered Simone with the tilt of an eyebrow.

‘Simone,’ said Gabrielle sternly, ‘don’t tease. I can’t be held responsible for the consequences if you do. Rafe’s not twelve any more. He’s unlikely to put a frog in your shoe in reply.’

‘Pity,’ said Simone with wistful sigh. ‘I like frogs.’

As a child she’d built homes for them in the shady nooks in the gardens of Caverness, and Rafael knew it. The frogs he’d put in her shoes had been gifts for her, not retaliation for her teasing, and she knew it. ‘To frogs,’ she said, and reached for the champagne.

‘To the children of Caverness,’ said Gabrielle, picking up another glass of the gently bubbling liquid. ‘May they never weep again.’

‘Lovely,’ said Simone approvingly. ‘Although possibly a little optimistic.’

‘Just how much wine have you two already had?’ asked Rafael.

‘He had to go and spoil it,’ said Gabrielle, eyeing her brother darkly.

‘No sense of occasion at all,’ agreed Simone, sipping her champagne. ‘Oh, this is good . Rafael, try some.’ She wasn’t inebriated. She didn’t think for one minute that a glass of champagne, even if it was a superb vintage, would change Rafael’s opinion of her. She just wanted Rafe to be able to relax around her, just a little, so that she could relax, so that maybe, just maybe, they could get through this evening without bloodshed.

Rafael’s lips tightened as he reached for the only glass of champagne still left on the table. Half of it went in one long swallow. The man was obviously thirsty and royally out of sorts. Maybe she’d been a bit hasty in sending the rest of the bottle to the kitchen.

‘It’s Luc’s favourite vintage,’ she told him. ‘Do you like it?’

‘It’s superb,’ he said curtly. ‘Not that you need my opinion.’

‘Just checking,’ she said. ‘I do that a lot. Occupational hazard.’

‘And what exactly is it that you do these days, princess? Besides delegate, that is.’

Ooh, he was asking for trouble. She didn’t care how big and beautiful he was. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ she said airily. ‘I spend a bit of time pottering around the gardens of Caverness. I oversee the running and maintenance of the chateau. I run the European marketing arm of the Duvalier winemaking dynasty. That sort of thing.’

‘Don’t forget all the hiring and firing,’ injected Gabrielle. ‘You do that too.’

Simone shook her head. ‘Luc usually does all that.’

‘But you were the one to suggest that Josien find work elsewhere,’ said Gabrielle quietly.

‘Oh.’ She took a deep breath. ‘That. So I was.’

Rafael’s sudden stillness unnerved her. The intensity of his gaze unnerved her more.

‘You fired Josien?’ Rafe’s voice was mild. Too mild. ‘You?’

‘Yes.’ Simone tried hard not to quail beneath the onslaught of that searching blue gaze. She’d fired his mother from a position Josien had held for almost thirty years, but not without good reason. Rafe hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen for himself how untenable Gabrielle’s position as Luc’s wife would have been had Josien stayed in residence as housekeeper to Caverness. ‘Me.’

‘Why?’

Now there was a question in need of a careful answer. Never mind that Rafe had been baiting her and she him ever since he’d stepped into the room. Never mind that he’d been estranged from Josien for years. Criticising a man’s mother was never a sensible thing to do. ‘Because I wanted her gone from Caverness.’